5 ms·

It seems unwise to promote casual sex without fully understanding the consequences. And I don't speak of the overblown disease fears, but the far more serious e

by FD3SA 15y ago

It seems unwise to promote casual sex without fully understanding the consequences. And I don't speak of the overblown disease fears, but the far more serious effects of emotional desensitization. Sex elicits a chemical response much like cocaine or heroin, and is also prone to the build up of tolerance. Thus, casual sex with multiple partners leads to a severely diminished capacity for pair bonding and emotional fulfilment. It is no coincidence that the state of marriage in western nations is in shambles, while citizens report high levels of unhappiness as demonstrated by massively increasing antidepressant consumption [0]. Promoting a rapid change from tradition should be done so cautiously, for Occam's Razor suggests that the majority of the world's civilizations evolved strict marital practices (celibacy till marriage and fidelity thereafter) for good reason [1]. 0. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db76.htm http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db76.htm 1. http://darktriumvirate.wordpress.com/2011/10/02/the-cancer-of-western-civilization/ http://darktriumvirate.wordpress.com/2011/10/02/the-cancer-o...

philwelch 15y ago
Research tends to show that "celibacy until marriage and fidelity thereafter" tends to be more of a lie that people all agree to believe rather than the truth. Pre-marital shenanigans and extra-marital affairs are extremely common, the latter especially among higher-status men, who in many other cultures are openly polygamous. There are a number of things that are cultural universals. Every culture has music, or ritualistically disposes of their dead, or has taboos against murder. Monogamy and pre-marital celibacy are not two of these.
- m-photonic 15y ago
  I wouldn't call it "a lie that people agree to believe," I'd call it an ideal that people may or may not live up to. All cultures have ideals, and they have a strong impact on the direction of a society even if people don't live up to them 100%. It's not hard to see the positive impact of monogamistic ideals when it comes to things like family formation, which is one of the cornerstones of society as we know it. Social norms aren't arbitrary, even if they aren't human universals -- you'll notice that matriarchal, low-paternal investment cultures never seem to get off the ground. All of the most successful cultures have broad similarities in regards to their attitudes towards sex, even if there are some differences. Such is the extent of the impact of sexual culture on the structure of the larger society. In less affluent times, when people's lives depended on it, it was obvious that family formation was more important than recreational sex. Even today, with the importance of the family being somewhat masked by the expanded presence of larger-scale institutions like the state, it remains a crucial element of a truly healthy society. Human beings are adaptable, and in modern times we can probably afford a more permissive sexual culture. Nevertheless, I think we'd be profoundly better off if people were more aware of the value of sexual restraint. Hedonism should not be our only guiding principle.
  - deleted 15y ago
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  - philwelch 15y ago
    These social norms were formed when people didn't have the wealth or the technology for effective birth control. Once that happened, the sexual revolution happened. Cultures are self-modifying based upon changing conditions.
    - m-photonic 15y ago
      >Cultures are self-modifying based upon changing conditions. Yes, and like biological evolution, cultural evolution has no foresight. Birth control may have facilitated these cultural changes by removing the most obvious downside to promiscuous sex, but this has next to nothing to do with my argument. The point is that such radical changes in a culture can have unforeseen consequences for our psychology and society. I don't pretend to know what the "ideal" sexual culture for our time would be, but people should be more critical of the all-accepting, hyper-individualistic direction we seem to be going in.
      - philwelch 15y ago
        > The point is that such radical changes in a culture can have unforeseen consequences for our psychology and society. The old order had unseen consequences for our psychology and society too. The strong taboo against divorce enabled a lot of domestic violence and unhappy marriages, gays faced a lot of serious problems, and infidelity was rampant. Sexual repression itself has psychological consequences. We're still seeing the knock-on effects of this today. You're making a cultural evolution argument as well, and my counterargument is that cultural evolution doesn't capture everything that we want to have in our society. Societies can function with the repression of women and minorities, with domestic violence, with marital infidelity. But all things considered, wouldn't we rather live in a society that functioned without those things, and with more satisfying sex to boot? Furthermore, with the modern state of technology, the old order is probably unworkable anyway, even from the standpoint of cultural evolution. The old order was patriarchial and oppressive to women. It was always wrong, but in a time when women didn't work outside the home it was at least sustainable. In our modern economy that's no longer the case.
- FD3SA 15y ago
  Food for thought: http://tinyurl.com/7erlzzn http://tinyurl.com/7erlzzn
  - philwelch 15y ago
    I dispute the idea that marriage stability in and of itself is a metric we should seek to maximize. Some marriages should end in divorce. All that you're really doing is showing that one form of social conservatism is correlated to another form of social conservatism. That doesn't actually illustrate anything. Also, it's not even a correlation between orthogonal variables. Presumably, if you're already in a stable marriage for a longer period of time, there was less time for you to have premarital sex in the first place.
darklajid 15y ago
The saddest thing is that you seem to be serious about this, even trying to make it 'legit' or somewhat sensible by invoking Occam's Razor. No facts (a link to general antidepressant consumption and a random blog w/ exactly three posts). Everyone move along, someone just posted a (traditional, right-winged/conservative) private opinion on life and family values with a healthy dose of conspiracy FUD (marriage .. shambles .. unhappiness .. antidepressant).
- FD3SA 15y ago
  An ad hominem attack with a dash of appeal to authority...enlightening. If you require proof of sexuality's impact on human behavior, I recommend reviewing the extant literature. Here are some examples: 1. http://www.amazon.com/Red-Queen-Evolution-Human-Nature/dp/0060556579 http://www.amazon.com/Red-Queen-Evolution-Human-Nature/dp/00... 2. http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Animal-Science-Evolutionary-Psychology/dp/0679763996/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1321551965&sr=1-1 http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Animal-Science-Evolutionary-Psyc...
bazquz 15y ago
I would even go far enough to suggest that sex-thoughts lead to mental retardation. Also, child rearing is the greatest learning experience on earth.
JadeNB 15y ago
> celibacy till marriage This is like practicing hunger until eating; there's no alternative. As Carlin memorably puts it, the ‘no-nookie clause’, which is what I think you meant, is called chastity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celibacy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celibacy / http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chastity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chastity / http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstinence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstinence Aside from the linguistic nitpicking, anyone who cites all the world's agreement on matters of sex and morality related to marriage hasn't studied any history, or, for that matter, the actual state of the present-day world.

by FD3SA 15y ago

philwelch 15y ago

Research tends to show that "celibacy until marriage and fidelity thereafter" tends to be more of a lie that people all agree to believe rather than the truth. Pre-marital shenanigans and extra-marital affairs are extremely common, the latter especially among higher-status men, who in many other cultures are openly polygamous. There are a number of things that are cultural universals. Every culture has music, or ritualistically disposes of their dead, or has taboos against murder. Monogamy and pre-marital celibacy are not two of these.

m-photonic 15y ago
I wouldn't call it "a lie that people agree to believe," I'd call it an ideal that people may or may not live up to. All cultures have ideals, and they have a strong impact on the direction of a society even if people don't live up to them 100%. It's not hard to see the positive impact of monogamistic ideals when it comes to things like family formation, which is one of the cornerstones of society as we know it. Social norms aren't arbitrary, even if they aren't human universals -- you'll notice that matriarchal, low-paternal investment cultures never seem to get off the ground. All of the most successful cultures have broad similarities in regards to their attitudes towards sex, even if there are some differences. Such is the extent of the impact of sexual culture on the structure of the larger society. In less affluent times, when people's lives depended on it, it was obvious that family formation was more important than recreational sex. Even today, with the importance of the family being somewhat masked by the expanded presence of larger-scale institutions like the state, it remains a crucial element of a truly healthy society. Human beings are adaptable, and in modern times we can probably afford a more permissive sexual culture. Nevertheless, I think we'd be profoundly better off if people were more aware of the value of sexual restraint. Hedonism should not be our only guiding principle.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- philwelch 15y ago
  These social norms were formed when people didn't have the wealth or the technology for effective birth control. Once that happened, the sexual revolution happened. Cultures are self-modifying based upon changing conditions.
  - m-photonic 15y ago
    >Cultures are self-modifying based upon changing conditions. Yes, and like biological evolution, cultural evolution has no foresight. Birth control may have facilitated these cultural changes by removing the most obvious downside to promiscuous sex, but this has next to nothing to do with my argument. The point is that such radical changes in a culture can have unforeseen consequences for our psychology and society. I don't pretend to know what the "ideal" sexual culture for our time would be, but people should be more critical of the all-accepting, hyper-individualistic direction we seem to be going in.
    - philwelch 15y ago
      > The point is that such radical changes in a culture can have unforeseen consequences for our psychology and society. The old order had unseen consequences for our psychology and society too. The strong taboo against divorce enabled a lot of domestic violence and unhappy marriages, gays faced a lot of serious problems, and infidelity was rampant. Sexual repression itself has psychological consequences. We're still seeing the knock-on effects of this today. You're making a cultural evolution argument as well, and my counterargument is that cultural evolution doesn't capture everything that we want to have in our society. Societies can function with the repression of women and minorities, with domestic violence, with marital infidelity. But all things considered, wouldn't we rather live in a society that functioned without those things, and with more satisfying sex to boot? Furthermore, with the modern state of technology, the old order is probably unworkable anyway, even from the standpoint of cultural evolution. The old order was patriarchial and oppressive to women. It was always wrong, but in a time when women didn't work outside the home it was at least sustainable. In our modern economy that's no longer the case.
FD3SA 15y ago
Food for thought: http://tinyurl.com/7erlzzn http://tinyurl.com/7erlzzn
- philwelch 15y ago
  I dispute the idea that marriage stability in and of itself is a metric we should seek to maximize. Some marriages should end in divorce. All that you're really doing is showing that one form of social conservatism is correlated to another form of social conservatism. That doesn't actually illustrate anything. Also, it's not even a correlation between orthogonal variables. Presumably, if you're already in a stable marriage for a longer period of time, there was less time for you to have premarital sex in the first place.

darklajid 15y ago

The saddest thing is that you seem to be serious about this, even trying to make it 'legit' or somewhat sensible by invoking Occam's Razor. No facts (a link to general antidepressant consumption and a random blog w/ exactly three posts). Everyone move along, someone just posted a (traditional, right-winged/conservative) private opinion on life and family values with a healthy dose of conspiracy FUD (marriage .. shambles .. unhappiness .. antidepressant).

FD3SA 15y ago
An ad hominem attack with a dash of appeal to authority...enlightening. If you require proof of sexuality's impact on human behavior, I recommend reviewing the extant literature. Here are some examples: 1. http://www.amazon.com/Red-Queen-Evolution-Human-Nature/dp/0060556579 http://www.amazon.com/Red-Queen-Evolution-Human-Nature/dp/00... 2. http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Animal-Science-Evolutionary-Psychology/dp/0679763996/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1321551965&sr=1-1 http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Animal-Science-Evolutionary-Psyc...

bazquz 15y ago

I would even go far enough to suggest that sex-thoughts lead to mental retardation. Also, child rearing is the greatest learning experience on earth.

JadeNB 15y ago

> celibacy till marriage This is like practicing hunger until eating; there's no alternative. As Carlin memorably puts it, the ‘no-nookie clause’, which is what I think you meant, is called chastity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celibacy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celibacy / http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chastity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chastity / http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstinence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstinence Aside from the linguistic nitpicking, anyone who cites all the world's agreement on matters of sex and morality related to marriage hasn't studied any history, or, for that matter, the actual state of the present-day world.